Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Customs Service, Area II Command Onne Port, has recorded a total revenue collection of N22.96 billion in the first quarter of 2020.
This was disclosed by the Customs Area Controller of the Command, Mr Aliyu Galadima Saidu, during a breakdown of the revenue figures, seizures and export statistics between January and March this year.
It was revealed that a sum of N7,651,099,364.62 was generated in January; N7,589,349,555.61K in February and N7,701,331,243.20K in March 2020.
On export, the Command recorded 1,053,531 metric tonnes with Free on Board(FOB) value of $87,136,233.66 and total Nigeria Export Supervision Scheme (NESS) value of N132,399,525.56 respectively, in the first quarter of 2020.
It was disclosed that seven seizures of containers made in the first threw months of the year comprised 1,225 bales of used clothing, 35 sacks of used shoes, 86 bales of used hand bags and other the miscellaneous goods such as foreign detergent, lightings, foreign parboiled rice, perfume, body spray and others, all valued at N215,387,201.18
The above seized items, according to Mr Saidu, were brought into the country in contravention of the Customs and Excise Management Act and extant import prohibition list.
For the NESS Fee which is a statutory payment to the Federal Government on all legitimate goods exported from the country, 377,985 metric tonnes were processed through the port in January; 455,987 metric tonnes in February and 219,559 metric tonnes in March.
Speaking after the assessment, the Area Controller thanked officers and men of the command for their resilience, commitment and diligence to work in the face of coronavirus pandemic.
“I want to commend our officers and port users for keeping the tempo of activities going in Onne port without compromising basic rules of hand washing, usage of sanitizers and strict maintenance of the social distancing rules.
“Let us continue to be health and safety conscious this period and beyond, while shunning any attempts at making us compromise on our duties of revenue collection, trade facilitation and suppression of smuggling
“Our stakeholders are advised to utilise all Customs modernisation options available to them to reduce human contacts as much as possible while conducting businesses in the ports.
“The Controller General of Customs is not unaware of our efforts to serve the country and maintain full presence at our duty posts, as directed, this period. I urge you all to keep it up.
“Like I have always said, compliance is very vital to trade facilitation. All importers and agents are once again enjoined to be compliant by making sincere and accurate declarations, avoid concealment, under value and smuggling under any guise.
“Violations will be met with seizures and arrests as we will not hesitate to invoke relevant sections of CEMA Cap C45 of LFN 2004 as amended to apply lawful sanctions against defaulters,” Mr Saidu said.
